Accident Investigation Report 22/2016

Summary

At 1424 on 28 April 2016, the 11.6m potter Harvester grounded on rocks in Abereiddy Bay, North Pembrokeshire, and sunk a short time later. There was no indication of any crew on board at the time of the grounding. A large-scale search and rescue operation commenced and the body of a crew member was recovered from the water 3 miles from where Harvester had foundered. He was not wearing a lifejacket or other buoyancy aid. The second crew member has not been found despite an extensive search.

Safety issues

The presumed system of work for shooting pots on Harvester did not sufficiently separate the crew from the running gear to prevent the accident

Neither crew member was wearing a personal flotation device (PFD), significantly lowering their chances of survival

A personal locator beacon is a very useful additional means of raising the alarm particularly, as in this case, if no one is left on board and the only other means of raising the alarm remains on the vessel.

Harvester’s automatic identification system unit was switched off at the time of the accident. An historical track of the vessel’s movements would have been particularly valuable to those involved in the initial search and rescue operation

Recommendations

A recommendation has previously been made to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to make arrangements to rapidly introduce the compulsory wearing of personal flotation devices on the upper decks of all fishing vessels while at sea. No additional recommendations have been made in this report.

Related publications

A safety flyer highlighting a number of the safety issues was produced for this report.

A further 2 reports, Annie T (21/2016) and Apollo (23/2016), were published the same day because in all 3 accidents the fishermen might have survived had they been wearing PFDs when they entered the water.